Swine Cells Could Power Artificial Liver

Chronic or acute, liver failure can be deadly. Toxins take over, the skin turns yellow and higher brain function slows. "There is no effective therapy at the moment to deal with the toxins that build up in your body," said Neil Talbot, a Research Animal Scientist for the USDA Agricultural Research Service. "Their only option now is to transplant a liver."

Talbot thinks a line of special liver cells could change that. In an interview with the American Society of Animal Science, he discussed how a line of pig liver cells called PICM-19 could perform many of the same functions as a human liver.

In 1991, Talbot created PICM-19 from the cells of an 8-day-old pig embryo. The cell line is significant because it is "immortal," meaning the cells can divide an infinite number of times. Many immortal cells lines continue dividing because they are derived from cancer cells; however, PICM-19 cells are derived from epiblast cells, the embryonic stem cells that form in the early stages of embryo development.

This immortal cell line has helped Talbot study how cells differentiate. Cells from the PICM-19 lines naturally differentiate into bile duct cells or hepatocytes. Hepatocytes do the bulk of the work in a liver. Hepatocytes form and secrete bile, store glycogen, control blood glucose, process vitamin D, and metabolize cholesterol and fat. "The PICM- 19 cells are the cells that really do all the metabolic functions of the liver," said Talbot. Hepatocytes also "scrub" toxins from the blood. Talbot said PICM-19 cells could do the same thing inside an artificial liver. There have already been several in vitro tests of artificial liver devices.